


Tearing At The Edges.

by withoutwords



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Hawaii Five 0 Big Bang 2017, Humour, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Some Guns and Minor Violence, some more angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:23:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10574085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: It’s been two years since Danny left Hawaii to be with Rachel, Grace and their unborn baby and things just never got back on track. Not when the baby came, not when Rachel left him - again - not when she went back to Stan and they moved all the way to Chicago with Danny on their tail. So when Steve comes to stay with Danny while on assignment, Danny’s forced to ask himself the tough questions. Did he make the wrong choice, in the end? Does he need Five 0? The team? Or is it something else he’s been missing?





	

**Author's Note:**

> First, many thanks and congratulations to skyearth85 who did the art for this. It is so beautiful, I’m so glad I had the privilege of having you as my artist! Also, many many thanks to the beautiful beta team, lovethesnark, emry07-universe and felicity-smoak-is-my-goddess, who all took so much time out to read through this for me. I was stuck for a long time and having their backing really helped me push through.
> 
> Last but not least, many thanks as well to the lovely people behind H50BigBang this year, I’ve had fun! I hope you enjoy the story. Mahalo <3

Danny’s got an alarm clock shaped like a piece of pizza that Jen bought him for Christmas last year. She’d had one of the guys down in tech rig it so that it blasted _Living on a Prayer_ every morning, and no amount of bribery could get them to change it back for him. Danny had spent a lot of time being impressed with her way with people – until he discovered that what he thought was gentle charm was actually subtle intimidation.

Honestly, he's impressed by that as well.

“Would you move your ass, Williams!” Jen’s calling to him from his driveway, her ponytail askew where her head is hanging out of the car window. Danny still hasn’t managed to get his tie done up. “I bet Carlson I could beat him to work one day this week. He’s going to buy me one of those Walkie Talkie sets Miriam’s granddaughter has.”

Danny scoffs as loudly as he can at her. “Sure, _Harriet the Spy_! Carlson can’t even buy a round at _Bernice’s_ on Friday nights.”

Jen just cackles.

It’s an easy drive into the precinct. Danny can’t really say from all that much experience, though, after managing to score yet another partner who has more control issues than Danny has hair. If Jen isn’t driving the car she’s telling Danny what a lousy job he’s doing of it, so most of the time he was just glad to hand over the reigns.

At least she drove her own car.

“Did you have the kids last night?”

“Yeah. But Charlie had a fever, so Rachel _insisted_ on coming back early.”

“That sucks.”

“You know, it really does,” Danny agrees with a sigh, and Jen throws out an arm to clap him on the shoulder.

“Buck up, Detective,” she says with that smile he doesn’t trust. He loves it, he just doesn’t trust it. “I’ll buy you one of those disgusting donuts you like so much.”

“Disgusting!” Danny says, but before he can start on his well worn rant about why Green Tea and Coconut Donuts are actually one of man's finest creations, his phone starts to buzz in his pocket. It’s too early to be anyone but work, so he hits the receive button before he’s even registered who’s calling.

“Williams.”

“Danny?”

The voice grabs at Danny's spine like it always does and he's sitting up in his seat unthinking. “Oh, Steve,” he manages to say around a cough. “Hey.”

“Hey. Is this a bad time?”

“No, no you’re good.” Danny throws a look at Jen, who's eyeing him suspiciously. It's never been easy having detectives for friends. “What’s up?”

“Uh, I got a favour to ask, actually.”

“Sure.”

“The Governor’s assigned me to assist with something in Chicago -

“Let me guess, this thing you’re doing for the Governor is classified so I shouldn’t ask?”

“Some things never change, right?” Steve says with a chuckle, but it seems sad. It seems like so much _has_ changed.

With all the space between them, and all the time between calls, and the fact that he hasn’t seen Steve’s face in so long he’s tried to stop thinking about it - Danny _knows_ it’s changed.

“So, you need a place to stay?”

“Yeah. It’ll just be for a few days, but - ”

“Of course you can stay, man,” Danny tells him, and he feels a little unsteady at the thought of it. “Stay as long as you like.”

“Thanks. I’ll send you the details later.”

“No problem. I’ll talk to you then.”

“Bye.”

As he’s pocketing his phone, Danny catches another of Jen’s glances. He chooses not to take the bait; one, because he’s a grown man, but mostly because, two, he hasn’t had any coffee yet.

“Seriously? Your long lost BFF calls - ”

“ _My BFF_?” Danny echoes with squinting rage.

“To say he’s coming to visit and I get nothing? Silence?”

“What do you want? Literature?”

“Yes!” Jen cries, but she’s laughing, finally pulling up to their precinct to start on what Danny senses is going to be a very long day. “I’ll have a thousand word essay on my desk by Friday, thank you.”

 

*

 

Danny’s made a lot of bad choices in his life.

There were the small things, like the Mohawk phase, back in the nineties. Then that underground hip hop group that mostly just entertained his idle dreams of one day being Marky Mark. 

There were the big things. The work choices, and the Rachel choices, and that night when he watched his brother disappear instead of taking him into custody like he should have done.  

Then there was the Hawaii choice.

Danny knows they think it was easy for him. Steve, Chin, Kono – they think Danny didn’t stop for a moment to consider letting his daughter and unborn son go and live in New Jersey without him. But he did. Every day for a week until Steve was out of jail, _he did_.

What would it cost to commute? Would he be able to swing the time off? How could Max help him set up his computer so he’d always be able to see the kids, and talk to them?

He thought about it endlessly. It just hurt too much. And not in that aching way, the way he misses Hawaii. But in that hot, stabbing way that made him want to throw up. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t do it.

He went back to Jersey.

He just couldn’t call it _going home_.

 

*

 

The night Steve’s due to arrive, Danny’s madly cleaning his house. He can hear all of Steve’s jibes in the back of his mind, the ‘You bring your kids here?’ and ‘Who was the last owner, a creature of the black lagoon?’ It makes him laugh, to think about, and then it makes him a little sick. He hasn’t seen Steve in almost two years, and now what? They’re buddies again? They pick up where they left off?

Sure, they’ve talked. About Five 0 and the cases (at least what they could share). About Grace and Charlie and how Chicago stacks up against New Jersey. Sometimes, when it was late, and dark, and quiet, Steve would call him up just to talk about his dad, and his mum, and Wo Fat, and how he felt like he was getting nowhere. How he was _going_ nowhere.

The thought of it grips at Danny’s throat.

Danny wonders about it sometimes. Whether things would be different, if he’d stayed. Whether the team would be stronger. Then he wonders if that’s selfish. If that’s stupid. As though their new recruit (Lori Weston, is her name, he may have run a background check on her when she first joined, possibly) doesn’t measure up to him. That’s not fair.

A lot of it wasn’t fair. A lot of it was his fault.

“Wow,” Steve says as he comes through the front door, dropping his bag. “You bring the kids here?”

“I knew it,” Danny starts, but he's grinning, pulling Steve into a hug and somehow feeling a sense of relief. He looks good, he looks _well_ , and it's like some stupid weight has been lifted. Like Danny can fool himself into thinking he’s without guilt just because Steve survived without him.

“How are they, any way?” Steve's asking, once they've put his things in the spare room, once they've settled on the couch with some beers. He has more grey hair, and more lines around his eyes, but he's tanned and strong and he smiles like he means it. “The kids?”

“Good, man, really good. You'd be proud of Grace, she's part of this wilderness program.”

“In the city?” Steve mocks.

“Yeah, yeah, they do excursions and that, you know? And Charlie's saying a lot more words.”

“Like Danno?” 

“He does say Danno, he does, but he prefers dadda.” Danny takes a swig of his beer and let's the quiet sit. There weren't a lot of silences back then. They were learning each other, as a team, as partners, as friends.  Danny wonders if there's anything to relearn, or learn anew - or if Steve feels like Danny does. Like life has mostly just been on pause. “What?” he says when he catches Steve looking at him.

Steve shakes his head, taking another sip of his drink. “Nothing, man, nothing. You just seem more… mellow, you know?”

“That's probably because I'm not chasing after you while you try to blow something up.”

Steve smiles again, but it's the first one Danny's seen that doesn't reach his eyes. “Right. Things are simpler here, are they?”

“I don't know. Quieter maybe.” _Wanting_ , he doesn't say. Like every day he goes to bed waiting for the punch-line. The _drama_. “And what about you? Any news to share?”

“Nothing I wouldn't have to kill you for,” Steve teases, winking, and gets up out of his seat. “Another beer?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

 

*

 

Danny’s got a raging headache and a junkie handcuffed to his desk the next morning; Jen sitting across from him with a shit eating grin. There’s a group of guys dressed as clowns out in the entranceway and an alarm going off out in the street and Danny _really_ hates this day. Already.

It’s only 8:30.

“Big night with Commander What’s His Name?” Jen asks over the top of her coffee cup. Danny still hasn’t had time to even get some sludge from the vending machine.

“ _McGarrett_ , and no. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep.” Jen’s brow shoots up as if she knows. As if she can just imagine Danny lying awake, his headphones blaring, trying to drown out the silence of the house. The knowledge that Steve was just a room away instead of the 4,000 miles he’s almost gotten used to.

Your problems are a lot easier to ignore when they’re so far away.

“You should try Valerian,” the junkie says, ducking his head when Danny cuts him a sharp look.  “You know, if you’re having trouble sleeping.”

“ _Valerian_ ,” Jen mocks, her eyes wide. “You know I think I heard that.”

Danny throws down his folder and loosens his tie. “Thank you both so much for your input, but I’m _fine_. I’ll probably sleep like a baby tonight if someone would throw me a case that doesn’t insult my intelligence.”

“Hey!” the junkie protests, but Jen is shooting out of her chair and grabbing her things.

“I have to go meet with this guy about the Velasquez murder.”

“Seriously?” Danny whines, but she just stands there with her head tilted like she’s waiting for something. She reminds him so much of Kono; that _take no shit_ attitude that he adores. He should probably tell her about that. He should probably tell her a lot of things.

“You in?”

“No shit, Jen, hey! Carlson!” Danny calls across the pen, swinging papers in the air. “Can you close this one for me?”

Carlson pulls a face and Danny could not care less. He’s taken so many of the guy’s Dead Ends that Danny should just retire and leave his caseload to him. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Alternative Medicine.” Danny gives the junkie’s shoulder a shake. “He might be able to help you with that rash you were telling me about.”

“Screw you, Williams!”

 

*

 

After almost a year, Danny’s managed to scope out some of the best places to eat in Chicago. Breakfast spots, delis, pizza joints, kid friendly diners - every now and then he’ll take them to a place called _Juno’s_ that make the most amazing, over the top milkshakes he’ll never admit to having. It usually takes him ten minutes just to get the kids back out of there, Grace pouting and whining the whole way to the car.

“This is good,” Steve’s saying, slouched in his chair and looking around the restaurant Danny’s brought him to. It’s one of Danny’s usual haunts, bright and open and loud - the owners know him by name at this point and always do their best to seat him at the same table. It’s familiar, and familiar is always a nice feeling when you’re new to such a big city.

“You haven’t eaten yet,” Danny feels the need to point out, tipping his glass.

“I meant the atmosphere, Danny, the _feel_.”

“Oh. Right. _The feel_. Yes. Very... atmospheric.”

“I can't believe you used to call _me_ an uncultured swine.” Steve says, but he’s grinning, tipping forward enough to grab his glass. He’s wearing _layers_ , which will never be not-weird outside of the uniforms; and dark denim. It’s like he’s a whole other version of himself. “And you call yourself a city dweller.”

“I call myself a city _outskirts_ dweller, actually,” Danny protests, but he knows that Steve’s not buying it.

“Right.”

“Besides. It’s _always_ about the food. You can put on the whole song and dance routine as much as you like but if the food’s bad - ”

“Are you saying the food’s bad?”

“Are you kidding? The food’s incredible!”

Steve almost chokes on his beer, shaking his head at Danny like he’s been doing the whole time since he got here. Maybe he’s been saving all his fond exasperation. Maybe no one challenges him like Danny does. _Did_. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

“Danny!” A voice calls from behind him, Danny twisting in his chair to see an old friend approaching.

“Paulie, hey,” he greets, getting up to shake his hand and pull him in for a hug. It’s been a few months since they’ve seen each other - last time Paul had been navigating a new relationship and Danny had been navigating fatherhood with a toddler who could suddenly run. “What are you doing here, man?”

“It’s Beth’s birthday. We’ve brought her folks along.”

“Nice. Uh, this is Steve McGarrett,” Danny says, waving a hand at Steve. “My old partner from Hawaii.”

“Oh, wow, nice to meet you buddy,” Paul says with his usual megawatt smile, shaking Steve’s hand like he wants to sell him something. Steve doesn’t get up. “What brings you to town?”

“Business, actually. Danny was uh, kind enough to put me up for a few days.”

“ _Kind_ , right, I know that’s the first word I think of when I think of Daniel Williams.”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Danny cuts in. “Are you forgetting about all the times I hauled your drunken ass out of bars before you finally managed to find someone to put up with you?”

“Yeah, yeah, so who's hauling _your_ ass out of bars huh?”

“Very funny.”

“Anyway, I should get back. It was nice to meet you, Steve, keep an eye on this one won’t you?”

“Will do,” Steve says with a firm nod and a small smile, and it’s strange to see him with his guards up again - Steve had always enjoyed meeting new people. “Who was that?”

“Oh, um, a guy I met through my partner,” Danny tells him, sitting back down. Once they’d found out about their mutual love for Springsteen and boxing there’d been no turning back. “He’s a friend of her husband’s.”

“It’s good to see you with friends, you know,” Steve says, but it feels forced, it feels jilted, he washes it down with more beer. “You have people.”

Danny scoffs. “Of course I do. People love me.”

Steve’s just shaking his head again.

 

*

 

Rachel was eight months pregnant with Charlie when they broke up for the last time. It was a pattern with them, even before they had Grace - hot and cold and back and forth and up and down. They fought _all the time_ ; he’d yell and she’d throw things and it would usually end with them having sex on the nearest flat surface.

(Danny’s pretty sure Grace was conceived during one of those times.)

This time - the last time, he knows now that it’s the last time - it was quieter. Rachel sat him down and put a hand on his knee and was gentle, sorry, like she was a cop here to tell him that someone had died.

“I feel like I brought back a ghost,” she’d said, ironically, and the sight of her on the brink of tears was still too much for him to handle. It always was.

“That’s not - ”

“Yes, it is. You’re here, you’ve been so good and so supportive but you’re …”

“I’m just trying to find my feet.”

“No. You’re trying _not to_. You don't _want_ to.” Rachel wiped at her face, bristling a little as if she’d been steeling herself for battle. She was always so tough. Always so ready for the worst. Danny knew that a lot of that was because of him. Because of the job, and the risks, and the fear. “I can’t give you what you want, Danny.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny cried, grasping her hands a little tighter. “You’ve given me everything. You’ve given me a family.”

“Yes. But so did Hawaii. And I can’t be both.”

Later, he’d find out she’d been seeing Stan again. He’d find out that they’d already put plans in motion to pack up and ship out to Chicago on the heels of another one of Stan’s eccentric business ventures. It hurt - he got drunk a lot, and cried a lot and resisted the temptation to call Steve a lot - but it wasn’t a gaping wound. It was a prickling scab. He stopped prodding at it. It healed.

“I’ll have them back by seven,” Danny tells Rachel when he goes to pick the kids up the next day. Charlie’s slobbering all over his collar and Grace is pulling at his pants trying to tell him about a new badge she earned at wilderness club. “Uh, you should know, too. Steve’s staying with me for a few days.”

“Steve McGarrett?” Rachel says, her head tilted, like that’s some sort of puzzle she needs to solve. Danny frowns at her, trying to remember the last time she’d even set eyes on Steve. Or why that would matter.

“Yeah? He’s on assignment from the Governor.”

“I see. Well, tell him hello from me.”

“I will.”

Danny takes the kids to the park first, plays with Charlie in the sandpit while Grace spins around on the monkey bars. They get gelato and stroll around town and when they finally make it back to Danny’s place Steve’s already back from work.

“Uncle Steve!” Grace shrieks when she sees him, flying at him so fast she actually gets airborne. Danny feels his heart swoop just a little, the way Steve catches her and the way they cling together and their shared, stupid grins - it’s like there’d been no distance at all. 

“Jesus, Danny,” Steve says a little later as they watch Grace feed Charlie in his high chair.

“What?”

“Just - you know,” he motions at the kids with circling hands. “I’ve seen pictures, but _this_. It’s different. They’ve changed so much.”

“Yeah.” Danny glances over to where Steve just watches, wide-eyed and soft. He’d never really talked about having kids of his own – when Danny first met him he’d looked at children like they were some subspecies the Navy hadn’t trained him how to engage with – but it always felt like that was what he was in pursuit of.

Steve gathered people around him like he was building a whole community. A family.

“Look,” he starts to stay, and Danny has to pull his eyes away so as not to be caught staring. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time, but I was gonna ask. I’m - this thing’s taking longer than it was meant to, so would you mind if I stayed on a little longer?”

“Yeah, of course,” Danny tells him sincerely, feeling it stretch in his chest. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, man, everything’s fine.”

 

*

 

Sometimes it still surprises Danny how much he misses Five-0. The big things he can understand; the team, his friends, his family. But even the little things get him. The way Chin used to ask him every other day if he wanted to go get lunch. The way Kono used to end her messages with little smiley faces. The way Max used to play Wagner so loud Danny would find himself humming it as he filled out reports.

He’d been so damn sure he was going to hate Hawaii. Even though it meant he had Grace, and even after meeting Meka, and even when he’d finally settled into some kind of normalcy - he was always going to go on hating it.

Except he didn’t.

He fell so deep, and so hard, that he managed to convince himself he’d never have to leave.

“So, honesty hour,” Jen says as she’s driving them back from work. They’d stopped off for something to eat because Danny was nursing a black eye and so much anger he could probably fuel a 747 with it. He didn’t care about the judgmental look Steve was going to give him, he was having donuts if he liked it or not.

“We had one of those this morning,” Danny says through a mouthful of fried and sugary heaven.

“Yeah, but that dissolved into an argument about putting fruit on pizza.”

“I still say tomato does _not_ count as a fruit. Who made that rule? What idiocy is that?”

“How’re things going with Steve?” Jen cuts in and Danny almost spills the contents of the bag into his lap. She’s always great like that, always giving him a sharp left hook when he doesn’t even realise he’s in the ring to begin with.

“Jesus.”

“You’ve been a little … distant.”

Danny feels suddenly guilty. “Sorry, I - “

“No, I don’t mean - it’s not affecting your work,” she insists. “I just mean, friend to friend. I want to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he says, trying to sound blasé but mostly feeling scrutinized. _Known_. It’s hard to be Detective Williams, Chicago P.D with Steve around. It’s hard to keep his badge hidden at home, or not go on about cases all night, or not feel desperately homesick thinking about how this could still be them.

Working together, being close, having each other’s backs.   

“I know how hard it was to leave that place, Danny. Having your old partner back has got to bring up some bad memories for you.”

“I suppose,” he says plainly, which he knows isn’t fair. He knows Jen’s always been a shoulder to lean on. He just can’t lean right now, for fear of toppling right over. “There’s a lot of good ones as well.”

“Yeah? You don’t really talk about it.”

“No, I guess not.”

Jen does him the courtesy of not talking about it anymore, and they spend the rest of the trip in relative silence. He can almost forget that he’s sporting a bruised and swollen eye except that Steve sees him the minute he gets out of the car and is over to him faster than a shot.

“What the hell happened?” Steve demands, Danny hissing as he steps up close to check the damage.

“Just a perp with a bad temper, nothing serious.”

“Did you ice it?”

“What is this, First Aid 101? Of course I put ice on it.”

“Um,” Jen pipes up, and Steve puts space between them so fast Danny almost feels like he has whiplash. (Danny hadn’t even realised she’d gotten out of the car.) “Who spent ten minutes convincing you to ice it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny grumbles, and then notices the looks Steve’s trading between the two of them. “This is my partner, Jennifer Durant. Jen, this is Steve McGarrett.” 

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” Steve says with a nod, and his arms are folded across his chest. He allows a small smile and it feels okay. It seems honest. “So you’re the reason I have to listen to _Jon Bon Jovi_ every morning?”

Jen lets out a bark of laughter. “Guilty. It’s some of my finer work, I have to admit.” 

“Once I had his ring tone set as a _Dr. Hook_ song whenever I called him,” Steve tells her and now they’re _both_ laughing. “It took him ages to figure out how to change it back.” 

“You know what, this is fun, my partners swapping old stories on all the clever ways they’ve humiliated me, but it’s been a long day, and I’m tired - ” 

“Aw, poor thing,” Jen teases, but she’s already going back around the car door to head off. “See you in the morning, _Sexy Eyes_.” 

“I hate that song!” Danny calls after her, while Steve just muffles his laughter into a fist.

 

*

 

Danny still has everyone’s numbers saved into his phone. He never deleted his old texts, or emails, and he’s somehow managed to stay on a lot of the mailing lists so he can keep up to date with all the news. (Max would send him random messages now and then, sometimes with photos; just of people's birthdays or articles about Five-0. Danny always made a point to thank him.)

When Chin’s number flashes up on his phone, it still takes a minute for Danny to actually pick up. He can’t remember the last time they talked. He can’t remember the last time he deserved it, if he’s honest. Why would you call someone that just disappeared from your life? “Hey, Chin,” he says thickly, having to find a quiet corner of the precinct to hide in. His fingernails dig into his palm.

“Hey, Danny! Howzit?”

“Yeah, good. Is everything okay?”

“Of course, brother,” Chin says around soft laughter. “Do I have to have bad news to call you?”

“No, no. Just, you know, with Steve staying here a few days I was worried something might have happened.”

There’s silence for a moment. “That’s what I was calling about actually.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah. So he is still with you?”

“Of course he is,” Danny says, and he knows it sounds defensive. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Well, after the assignment he told the Governor he needed to take a little time off. We figured he’d be spending it there, but he never actually contacted us to let us know.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny burrows a little deeper into the abandoned hallway he’d found, putting a hand over one ear to drown out the far off noise. “The assignment’s over?”

“Yeah? It was just a security thing for some political summit they were having there in Chicago.”

“Right.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Uh, no,” Danny says, and he can’t stop the sigh that escapes him. He’d always been lousy at hiding the truth from Chin. _Everyone’s_ lousy at that. “Is everything okay there? Did something happen?”

“You mean other than Wo Fat still being on the run?”

“You thought maybe he’d gone off chasing him again?”

Chin pauses. Danny can just imagine the concern etched across his face, soft eyes and sharp lines. “It had crossed my mind. But he's there, so. That’s good.”

“He’s here,” Danny agrees.

“Keep an eye on him for us, will you?” Chin asks, but it sounds loaded. As though a simple, _keep and eye on him_ , is more of a very complex, _sort out this issue before it gets any worse_. Whatever that issue might be. “Let us know if anything happens?”

“You got it.”

“Thanks Danny. It’s good to hear your voice. Don’t be a stranger, alright?”

 

*

 

Danny doesn’t talk to Steve about it. He’s not really sure where to start. He wasn’t there when they found out about Kaye. He wasn’t there when Steve disappeared to Japan. He wasn’t there when Wo Fat got away from them again, or when Steve was drowning his sorrows in whiskey and sleepless nights.

He was only on the other end of a phone call. And it wasn’t enough.

“Did you just get up?” Steve asks on Saturday morning, fresh from the shower and coming in to see Danny making coffee in the kitchen.

“As if that surprises you,” Danny snipes, passing him a cup.

“What are your plans for the day?”

“I’m picking the kids up just after lunch,” Danny tells him with a shrug. Rachel had asked Danny whether Steve was still around – it had been pointed, confusing, he’d tried not to dwell on it – but he didn’t think she’d mind him having time with the kids. She'd moved on. She was always the one moving on. “I thought we could go grab some food first.”

“Yeah? Sounds good.”

Danny convinces Steve to go all out. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast - their plates are overflowing when they arrive at the table and Danny takes perverse pleasure in watching Steve eat it all. He likes this Steve, Vacation Steve, slurping at juice and laughing stupidly as he tells Danny about a recent arrest of a guy who thought Lori was his ex wife.

“He was absolutely wasted,” Steve says. “Kept yelling at her about the dog he lost in the divorce. Where's Rex, I want Rex back!”

“What'd she do?”

“Told him the dog had chosen to be emancipated and then run off to Acapulco. He cried in lock up for half a day.”

Danny grins around the lip of his mug. “Beautiful.”

“Jen seems like a great partner,” Steve says suddenly, as if he owes Danny that much, and Danny does his best not to be offended. He knew Steve would get a new partner, he’s not a child - and even if he doesn’t like it, he’s a detective. He can lie his way through practically anything.

“Yeah. Other than the fact she thinks Snickers are one of the five food groups.”

“Says the guy who used to steal all the peppermint patties out of my freezer.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

They don't rush. In the end it's Danny who can't finish all his food, and while he's still lamenting over the fact he feels like his pants are about to pop open Steve disappears to go and pay their bill.

“Hey, look at that, you remembered your wallet,“ Danny teases when he gets back, Steve grinning at him.

“Nah, bra, it's your wallet. Figure you owe me.”

“Owe you? For what? Having you in my home? Giving you shelter? Unbelievable!”

“For all the extra calories, Danno,” Steve says with a smile that crinkles at the corner of his eyes. He looks relaxed, and calm, and it’s not something Danny’s seen much of since he arrived. He likes it. “Don't think I didn't see what you did there.”

“Idiot. Let’s get out of here.”

The kids are ready to go when they get there. Grace is in Steve's arms the moment they step through Rachel's front door and while it's polite - handshakes and ‘how are you?’s - the air is thick with some kind of tension. Steve barely says a word.

“Charlie's due for a sleep soon,” Rachel tells Danny, as Steve heads out with Grace to the car. He decides not to point out the fact he knows this, that Charlie has a sleep at the same time every day.

“Sure.”

“Danny,” Rachel calls, and there's something in her eyes he hasn't seen for a while. A thinly veiled hesitance. Honest concern. “Do you know what you're doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean - Steve will have to go back eventually, won't he?”

“And?”

“And, well, where does that leave you?”

“Rachel - ” Danny starts, because it isn't fair. He's followed her around for three years, dropped everything, and lost so much, and what? She thinks he's just going to disappear? He's going to leave the kids, and her, in the lurch?

“Just,” she interrupts, a hand in the air. “Be kind to yourself, okay? I don't want to see you get hurt.”

It takes Danny a long time to regroup after that, to say a simple, _thanks_ before going to meet Steve and Grace at the car.

Steve grins at him, and it clutches tight at Danny's heart, and he thinks _Oh_.

_Right. That._

 

*

 

As much as Danny thinks about Hawaii - about why he had to leave, and how much he misses it, and if it was the right choice, in the end - there’s some things he’s tried really hard _not_ to think about. How it was the last place he ever saw Matt. How he’d almost died, clutching at his stupid tie. How he’d watched the team he loved so much crumble into a mess of anger and confusion and dread.

The other thing, the thing that’s probably been buried a lot deeper than anything else - is Steve. 

Steve, and how he’d become so familiar, so fast. How he’d built this family around them despite being abandoned by his own. Steve and his insistence, and his persistence, and the way he just dug deep under Danny’s skin like so few people had before. Steve was supposed to be cold and hard and uncaring. He was supposed to be some military monkey that didn’t understand Danny at his worst. But he wasn’t.

He was Danny’s best friend, probably the best friend he ever had, and he misses that.

He misses it every day.

 

*

 

They’re pinned down behind the squad car early the following week, a couple of runners shooting bullets overhead. Jen keeps yelling at them to stand down, but both she and Danny know that it’s futile. They just need to hold their ground until their back up arrives, or go one better and get a few lucky shots off.

It’s unlikely.

“I’m super pissed off, boys,” Jen’s shouting, throwing a wink at Danny. “My husband’s cooking pot roast tonight and after I’ve hauled your asses into the precinct, filled out all the paperwork and sent you off for processing I’m probably going to be home late for dinner.”

“I’m sure their hearts bleed,” Danny hisses at her, pushing up enough to shoot at the direction of the offenders.

“Well, fear of incarceration obviously isn’t working, _Detective_.”

“I think fear of incarceration might have been a good reason not to break, enter and batter, _Detective_.”

“Exactly,” she agrees, a little out of breath. “So let’s appeal to their more animalistic urges, huh? My mamma always told me that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“You think your mom would have classed these assholes as _men_?”

“No, you’re right.”

It’s never been his favourite part of the job. Stand offs and gun fights and violence. He likes finding answers. He likes finding peace. If there’s going to be so much ugliness in the world than he likes knowing he can bring some justice for the victims. Hope for the survivors.

It only takes a few more shots for things to turn ugly. Jen’s up over the hood of the car to aim and there’s suddenly a bullet in her arm, throwing her backwards.

“Jen! Jen!” Danny yells, seeing red, getting up to fire off whatever he’s got left in his gun before dropping to his knees to check her over.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she wheezes, her hand over the wound and blood slowly seeping through her fingers. “It’s just a graze.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Danny growls, pushing hair from her face, hollowed out and shaking and holding back.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she promises him, because she knows him better than Danny’s willing to admit sometimes - she knows how much he hates being coddled.

“You can be the one to tell Mark that, okay? I don’t want to give him any more reasons to yell at me.”

“Sure,” she says around an amused cough, wincing at the pain. “You can come over for meatloaf one night.”

“I can’t believe you’re still talking about food.”

“I can’t believe you’re _not_.”

When they hear the sirens approaching they both sigh in sync, laughing together as Danny clutches her hand in his.

 

*

 

They're watching an old Packers game when Paul comes over one night. Danny's already half asleep with his feet up, a bowl of half eaten popcorn wedged between him and Steve on the sofa. Steve’s stupid commentary on their plays (which Danny always goes out of his way to argue with) is low and grumbling, kicking bare feet at Danny whenever Danny ‘s eyes start to droop.

It’s so familiar he can almost forget where he is.

“Is the world ending?” Danny says grumpily when he opens the door to see Paul. “Am I dead? Or is it already over and you're here to tell me I have to go into the light?”

“Are you high?” Paul asks with a grin, pushing passed Danny to go inside and missing the way Danny mumbles _I wish_.

“Oh, hey man,” Paul's saying to Steve as Danny comes through, Steve on his feet to shake Paul's hand. “Didn't realise you were still here.”

“Yeah. Did you want a drink, or?”

“Nice of the guest to offer,” Paul says loudly, Danny throwing himself back onto the sofa.

“You just got here!” he protests, but Paul just waves a hand in the air.

“I'm fine. Actually, I just came to grab the airbed you had here for me, if that's alright? Beth's got a friend coming to visit and we don't have anywhere for them to sleep. ”

Danny groans, throwing his head back. “Ugh, seriously, you couldn't have called? I think I have it buried under about twenty boxes.”

“What'd I tell you about that, huh?”

“Oh, God, ‘Mr. I almost went to jail because I lost all my tax receipts’ over here is trying to lecture me about cleanliness?”

Paul's stupid laughter quickly dies down when he catches sight of Steve's face. It's as if Paul has just insulted the entire population of Honolulu. Or _surfing_. Steve’s got his hands shoved in his pockets and his mouth twisted in an expression Danny barely recognises. “Uh, Danny put me up a few nights when I was too drunk to walk in a straight line.”

“That was good of him.”

“Yeah, so, I'll,” Paul awkwardly glances at his watch. Danny knows him well, but it doesn't take a genius to recognise the move as an escape tactic. “I’ll swing by tomorrow, if that’s cool? Text me a time that’s better, Your Highness.”

“Fuck off,” Danny growls, kicking at Paul as he lets himself out. It’s not until Danny can hear the rumble of his engine starting that he dares to look at Steve. Surprisingly, Steve’s looking right back. Looking at Danny like he’s the one who has some explaining to do.

“What?” Danny snaps. “You’ve never let a buddy sleep on the floor before?”

“Sure,” Steve says with an ugly smirk, and it sets Danny's teeth on edge. “I'm just piecing together this rich history you and your _buddy_ clearly have together.”

Danny peers at him for a moment, the slope of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? Because between Paul, and Rachel, and hell, even Jen, you've made it pretty clear you're not interested in getting along with anyone in my life.”

“That's bull shit, Danny.”

Steve starts to head toward the kitchen, and Danny scrambles off the sofa to follow. He’s not sure how far he plans to go - Danny’s kitchen is barely big enough for one person to move around in. He stops in the doorway.

“How long are you staying, Steve?” is, for some reason unknown to Danny, the only thing he can think to ask. Steve huffs, but doesn’t turn to look at him.

“I didn’t realise I was such a burden.”

“ _You’re not_. But if you're just gonna be an asshole to everyone, I don’t get what you’re doing here.”

“I told you - ”

“No, _Chin_ told me,” Danny finally admits, and that gets Steve’s attention. He spins around, cornered. “He called and said that you were just doing some low level security job and you should have been home by now.”

Steve scoffs and looks away, scrubbing a hand across his face. It’s the same thing he used to do when he was trying to catch the bad guy. When he was _failing_. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m just worried about you!”

“Since when?” Steve shouts, crashing loud, the sound of it echoing around them. “When you brought over some _Longboards_ and told me you were leaving for good?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth, isn't it?”

There’s a pause. Danny tries to fight away the memories of that night. Of how he all but cried on Steve’s shoulder in an effort to explain why he _had_ to go. Steve had been different then, understanding – if Danny had thought for a moment he was bitter he would have addressed it then and there.

“You really think that? You think I stopped caring about you, about Five 0, because I chose my children?”

“I think you cut us off,” Steve says bitterly, and this time he’s looking Danny straight in the eye. “And you can’t deny it.”

“It _hurt_ , Steve!” Danny yells, and he’s surprised he has to admit that out loud. He thought Steve would just _know_. The same way Steve never spoke to his sister, the same way he buried himself in case after case to avoid the truth of losing his dad. It was easier to just keep his distance.

“No shit, Danny. It hurt when you left, and it hurt when you never called, and it hurt when everyone else just moved on.”

Danny holds back a scoff, understanding how serious this is. How serious _Steve_ is. “It was _never_ that simple. _Never_.”

“Yes it was. It was. Because one day I had you and the next day I didn’t.”

The admission is like a fist around Danny’s throat. He can hardly breathe for all the mess in his chest, the remorse and the pain and the sudden, shocking knowledge he was never alone in this feeling. He can barely say, “I’m sorry,” before Steve’s barreling on, louder and louder as he goes.

“I don’t know what I’m fucking doing, Danny! You were always there, holding me back. You were always there, holding the line, and now - now the line’s blurred. Half the time I think I’m just going to disappear.”

“If it’s about Wo Fat...”

“ _Wo Fat_?” Steve yells, almost hysterical, scoffing at Danny like it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. “It’s about you, and me, and the team - they’re good people. Don’t get me wrong. But there’s a hole, Danny, there’s been a hole since you left and I keep trying to fill it, I keep trying to stop the bottom from falling out but I … _fuck_.”

“Steve,” Danny tries, reaching out for him, but Steve throws his arms in the air to keep his distance.

“Don’t,” he says, shouldering past Danny who doesn’t have the strength to stop him. “Just - don’t.”

 

*

 

 

 

They don’t say much to each other, after that. Danny comes back from work expecting to see Steve gone, but he’s not. He makes food and gets beers and doesn’t say much of anything aside from the state of the world, or the score of a game. It’s a weird place to see Steve in – some strange kind of purgatory. The Steve he knows is always moving, always searching - for a wave, or a lead, or an answer.

The Steve he knows would never sit around waiting for something to happen.

Or maybe he already has been. Maybe that’s the whole point.

“Danny?” is how Kono picks up the phone when he calls her. He’s sitting in his car, alone, managing to shake Jen for the duration of their lunch breaks. He’s crouched in his seat as if he’s guilty of something – and it’s probably true.

He’s probably guilty of a lot of things.

“Hey, Kono.”

“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m alright. I’m … okay.”

“Yeah, you sound it,” she says, and he can hear how she’s smiling, and it almost makes him want to laugh.

“Steve’s still here,” he tells her, without any kind of preamble. Kono’s not an idiot. There’s no point pretending that this is something it’s not.

“Cool. He _okay_ too?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. He seems a little lost.”

“Yeah, bra. I know.”

“You _know_? What does that mean, you know?”

Kono sighs. In Hawaii, he might have taken her to a bar. He might have bought her a drink. They might have laughed together about Steve’s most recent antics. Yet here they are. “I kind of imagine him as the pre-Five 0 Steve, you know? The guy who just went to work, got the job done, rinse and repeat. Then Cath left - ”

“What do you mean, left?”

“Well, she never stuck around for very long in the first place. But the last time she said goodbye – I don’t know. We all understood it was _goodbye_.”

“Shit,” is all Danny can say, slumping further in his seat and blinking out the window. It’s a grey day.

“Yeah. It’s been tough for him. Five-0’s doing well, but Steve – he’s just going through the motions.”

Danny knows how that feels.

 

*

 

When Jen invites them around for dinner, Danny doesn't ask Steve so much as tell him. Mary had tried to warn Danny once, that when Steve’s angry he just needs some space to seethe. Danny never listened. Steve was a former Navy SEAL who lived alone, and never settled down, and had no sense of family before Five-0.

He’d had a whole lifetime of space.

(Danny had always been the one shaking him up.)

“Bruins?” Steve's asking later as Jen’s showing them around the house. They have paraphernalia on every space of wall they could find, not to mention a whole trophy room dedicated to their obsessions as well.

“Hockey’s kind of a big deal around here,” Jen tells him.

“Okay, but _Boston_? What about the Blackhawks?”

Jen and Danny both let out a low, _sssshhh!_ that Steve literally flinches away from. “Don’t say that word in this house,” Danny warns him through gritted teeth, quickly twisting it into a grin as Mark comes back through with their drinks.

“Steve was just admiring the Bruins gear,” Jen says in a voice so sickeningly sweet it almost makes Danny want to laugh. “Mark’s originally from Quincy so he’s been a diehard fan from a young age.”

“Ah,” Steve says, and takes a swig of his beer. There’s a teasing little smirk at the corner of his mouth that Danny can’t seem to tear his eyes from.

“You’re a hockey man, Steve?” Mark asks, and this time Danny does laugh. Steve throws him a look that clearly says, _shut up, former wrestler._

“No, not really. I played football at school.”

“Right. Quarterback?”

“Guilty as charged.”

Mark makes a tutting sound. “Shame.”

It's a good night. Steve's more relaxed than Danny's seen him in a while, chatting and laughing and swapping stories with Jen that make him regret ever introducing them in the first place. She keeps throwing Danny heavy looks, like she knows or something, like he's got a neon sign on his forehead that says, _I think there’s something going on here._

“Take care of yourself,” Steve says to Jen when they're leaving, then leans in to kiss her on the cheek and whisper something else.

“I will,” she tells him earnestly, smiling at Danny as he gives her and Mark a final wave.

The drive home is silent. When Danny cuts the engine in his driveway neither of them move to get out. “I should just go,” Steve finally says.

Danny’s not really surprised by it. “Just like that, huh?”

“We can yell at each other all we like, but we can't change the fact you're in Chicago now.”

“Is this about me coming back to Five 0? Or coming back for you?”

“Jesus,” Steve says, almost hushed, and now when he shakes his head there’s not an inch of fondness to be seen. He’s wound up, and frustrated, and he’s not alone. If Steve’s going to try and run away, Danny’s going to stop him head on.

“I need to know.”

“I told you! I miss you. But so what? What's that gonna solve?”

“Solve? It's not a damn case, Steve.”

“That's not what I meant and you know it.”

“Kono told me about Catherine,” Danny says before he can stop himself.

Steve makes a wounded sound, a sharp intake of breath. “Of course she fucking did. Are you having fun talking to everyone about me? _Behind my back_?”

“Well last time I tried to talk to you, you walked out. Who else am I going to get answers from?”

“Cath is not an answer. Cath has nothing to do with it.”

“Steve, come on,” Danny implored, reaching to wrap a hand around Steve’s forearm. This was what they did – this was who they were. He doesn’t recognise the tortured silences, or the fleeting looks. Steve always told him everything.

“You want me to call her right now so she can tell you herself?”

“You talk to her?”

“Yes! We’re friends. She was there for me when you weren’t. But just like you, she couldn’t stay in Hawaii just to keep me happy. She left.” Then, under his breath, “Everyone always fucking leaves.”

Danny can’t take it any more. His grip tightens, he pulls at Steve. “Tell me what you’re doing here, Steve, _what do you want_?”

“What do you think?” Steve yells, finally looking at Danny openly, honestly. “I want you to come back. I’ve always wanted you to come back.”

“Why? To be your partner? Or to be, to be -”

Danny’s embarrassed to admit he doesn’t really see it coming. He probably should have, all things considered, but he’s so wound up he hadn’t even realised it was what he wanted too. Steve pulls him in by his shirt, pulls him in to push their mouths together in some rough, punishing kiss and he can’t help the sound that rumbles up from his throat. He can’t help the way his hand clenches into the back of Steve’s head to keep him.

“Shit,” Danny says, opening his mouth for it, the hot slick of it almost obscene. Steve tries to push closer, push harder, but there’s nowhere for him to go. He kisses at Danny’s cheek, his jaw, his throat, taking him in, breaking him down. “You wanna go in-?”

“Yes,” Steve says before Danny can even get the whole question out, and they’re scrambling out of the car to get to the front door. It takes Danny a few attempts to find the right key - post box key, back door key, Grace’s bike lock - and by the time they get inside Steve’s humming with his impatience, his hands warm and grasping at Danny’s shoulders, his neck, his face.

“Bed, bed,” Danny’s ordering between biting kisses, arms bumping into walls and hips bumping into door frames, and they should probably take a step back from this, they should probably work out what it is they’re doing here, but.

Steve pulls back from the kiss enough to look at Danny. His mouth is pink and wet, and his eyes look glazed over like he’s just taken a hit of something so good he can’t see straight. “Danny, I,” he starts to say, and Danny thinks fuck it.

He wants this. He’s taking it.

He pulls Steve down onto the bed.

 

*

 

_Oooh, we’re half-way there -_

Danny swings an arm out to smash at the alarm, Bon Jovi cutting out into silence. When he rolls back over he realises he’s alone - the only remnants of the night before are the twisted sheets and the smell of his pillows. Steve had fallen asleep here, Danny had watched him, so he can take comfort in knowing that he’d stayed for a little while at least.

“Steve?” he calls out into the otherwise quiet house, hoping that he’d just gone to get coffee, or something to eat. There’s no answer.

The memory of Steve saying, _I should just go_ , grips at Danny suddenly. Surely things had changed now? Surely he wouldn’t just disappear after they’d had sex - rea _lly good_ sex at that. It wasn’t Steve’s style, not when it came to the people he cared about. Not when it came to Danny.

“Hey,” a soft voice says from the doorway, and Danny looks over to see Steve in just his boxers, holding a cup of coffee.

“Thought you might have taken off,” Danny admits, reluctantly, sitting up to rub at his eyes. Steve throws him a look.

“To go where?”

“I…”

“I thought I made it pretty clear I wanna be where you are.”

“You made it pretty clear you were angry with me.”

Steve comes over to sit on the edge of the bed, passing the mug to Danny. “Not just with you, Danny, with … with all of this.” He motions around the room. “You have a great job, and good friends, and _your kids_ \- what can I offer you?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, babe,” Danny says. “The sex was great, for one.”

Steve huffs at him. “Oh, well, at least there’s that.”

Danny sips at his coffee, looking Steve over. He has red marks at his throat, and on his torso, and it fills Danny with impossible feelings, knowing he did that. Knowing he can do it all again. That Steve _wants_ him too. “I think I probably always thought of you like that. Like this.”

“I always drove you crazy.”

“That too,” Danny agrees, smiling into his cup. “But I - there was Grace, and Rachel - I couldn’t risk all that for something I wasn't sure would work.”

“Yeah. Me too.

  
Danny holds back the thought niggling in his mind. The little voice in his head saying, _you still don’t know if this is going to work_. They’d had an amazing night together – the thought of it simmers hot across Danny’s skin – and he really doesn’t feel like ruining it by being the sensible one again.

“What do you want to do?”

“You mean, right now?” Steve says with a smirk, getting up on his knees to crawl over and take Danny’s coffee away. Danny would protest, except for the way he’s being pushed back down into the mattress.

“I didn’t mean right now.”

“Too bad,” Steve says, a little breathless, tugging at the sheets to expose Danny, stretched out and naked. “Because right now you’re mine.”

Danny grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him down.

*

Danny’s got a short list of lovers. There was a girl at school, and another just after, before meeting Kyle Danvers when he was fresh out of the academy. He wasn’t with Kyle long, just over six months, but it was the first time he’d let himself have that. The first time he told himself, _this is okay. You can have more with a man than just sex_.

It wasn’t like being with Rachel (and Steve’s a whole other thing) – it wasn’t like they were in love. They had fun together, Kyle made him feel wild, and sexy, and wanted.

It was _easy_.

That’s _how_ he knows it wasn’t love.

“Are you whistling?” Jen asks, almost sounding revolted, as Danny’s clearing his desk at the end of the day. It had been a slow one – there hadn’t been any call outs – so mostly he’s just relieved it’s finally over.

“I’m humming,” he tells her matter of factly. “Sorry, fun police. Is that not allowed?”

“You were _humming_ Kung-Fu Fighting so no, it’s not allowed.” 

“Well, good thing I’m leaving then,” he teases, waving some files at her as he goes and pointedly ignoring the suspicious look on her face. 

Danny wonders if saying it out loud will change it. That it will make it _too_ real. That if he tells Jen he and Steve have something now, that she’ll ask all those questions she loves to ask. What does that mean? and When’s he going back? and Are you doing this long distance, how will it work? All the questions Danny doesn’t know the answers to.

Danny would rather focus on this – Steve in his kitchen drinking tea out of one of those stupid cups Rachel made him take when they broke up. Steve grinning at him with that secret in his eyes. The _I’ve seen every part of you now_ secret.

“Hi,” Danny says, with his own grin, setting his stuff down on the table.

“Hi.”

“You wanna go out?”

“Sure.”

Danny takes Steve to this little hole-in-the-wall place; where the menu mostly consists of fried food and beer. The conversation pours out of them in a way it wasn’t before. There’d been strained silences and loaded looks like they knew there was only one thing they should be talking about, but weren’t.

Now it feels like nothing’s off limits.

“This reminds me of Joe’s place,” Steve says with a small smile, standing back while he waits for Danny to take his shot at the pool table.

“I still can’t believe he actually bought a bar.”

“You can’t? It’s packed full of all his old buddies almost every night.”

“That I can imagine,” Danny laughs, punctuated by the crack of a ball being potted into the corner. “Is it just a front for all the military men to get together and trade their rare ammunition?”

“Yes, Danny. That’s exactly what it’s for.”

They eat and chat and trade knowing glances, Steve brushing past Danny on purpose and letting his touch linger. He looks so good tonight – which is stupid he always looks good, but it’s different. He’s calmer and softer and he smiles with his eyes and Danny just wants to reach out and touch him.

When they get back to Danny’s, they kiss against the front door for a long time. It’s slow, and heady, Danny can feel it in his fingertips. They’re like sparks where they dig into Steve’s back, like his whole body is just a shot of heat and he needs Steve to feel it. He knows Steve can feel it.  

“You bulked up a lot,” Steve tells him when he’s got Danny spread out on his bed. Danny feels warm under his appreciative stares, his breath hitching when Steve grabs him to roughly pull him closer.

“Gotta do something to pass the time,” he says with a shrug, then gasps when Steve gets a mouth low on his belly, grazing his teeth into Danny’s hip. He’s worked up, already, his dick hard and insistent and Steve’s mouth so very, very near. He arches a little, and grabs at Steve’s hair, and tries not to thrust into the promise of what’s to come. Steve looks up at him, smirking.

“You want my mouth?”

“No, Steve, that sounds terrible,” Danny barks, as sarcastic as he can be when he’s so desperate for more. “What do you think?”

It should come as no surprise to Danny that Steve’s as good at sex as he is everything else. How he can take Danny deep and wet, how he can take his time, how he can apply just the right pressure to the base, and to his balls to have Danny flirting at the edge. To have Danny writhing against the sheets like he’s mad with fever, so hot and yet so strung out on that chill that finds its way down his spine.

The sounds and the smells and the feeling of Steve’s blunt fingernails scratching at his skin – it’s too much. Danny completely lets go of all his inhibitions and just takes, and takes, and enjoys. He feels enveloped in this, in Steve’s mouth and hands and care – he feels like he could just drift into nothingness. Just the two of them. Forever.

“Look, I didn’t really tell you,” Danny says, later, Steve’s hand threaded in his hair and his eyes dark as they sweep across Danny’s face. He keeps looking at him as if he might disappear. “You’re not alone in this, you know? All that stuff you said about missing me. I feel the same way. I mean, Rachel and I, part of why we couldn’t make if work was because I couldn’t let go of Hawaii. Of _you_.”

“Danny.”

“I’m serious, Steve. You were right, I cut you off. But that was just because I was trying so hard to make this work.”

“And it has. You’re doing great.”

Danny scoffs, curling further into Steve’s side and burying his face into the skin of Steve’s shoulder. “Right now? Yeah. I am.”

 

*  


Danny has the kids on Saturday night, so Steve disappears back into the guest room early Sunday morning. It’s a close call – Charlie’s wailing for breakfast by 6:30am and Grace comes blearily into Danny’s room to pull him out of bed. All three of them go downstairs to get their day started, and it’s only five minutes later that Steve joins them.

Steve makes pancakes, and Grace watches cartoons, and Charlie toddles around chasing after a toy train that makes obnoxious noises as it goes. Danny sits with his coffee and only half reads the paper and feels so full, so happy, that it’s almost like his whole body thrums with it.

Steve presses a kiss to the top of his head, and says,

“This is good,” with such reverence, and sincerity. Danny knows he’s feeling the same way.

Danny hasn’t had a day like this since Grace was a baby. A day of being part of a whole, happy family. After first splitting with Rachel it was the little things he missed the most. When they’d take Grace in the stroller and go to the park. When all three of them couldn’t sleep so Danny would strap Grace to him and they’d go to the store at 1 in the morning to get Rachel ice cream.

When they just loved each other and it was that simple. It was all that really mattered.

“You’re good with her,” Steve says when they’ve dropped the kids off later and are heading back to Danny’s place.

“With who? Rachel?”

“Yeah, man. In Hawaii – well, when I first met you. That was ugly.”

“Yeah, well.” Danny just shrugs. It feels like a lifetime ago. Steve had changed all that, anyway. “You live you learn.”

“That’s it? She cheated on you, she dragged the kids off again - ”

“It wasn’t like that, Steve.”

He makes a wet, scoffing sound that startles Danny. “Okay. What was it like, then?”

Danny sighs, pressing the heel of a hand into an eye. “She didn’t get the life she was promised,” he says. “The _man_ she was promised. I told her I was going back to Jersey to be with her, and be part of our family, but we both thought that also meant I was going back to be happy. And I wasn’t. Not really.”

“I’m - ” Steve goes to say, but Danny just keeps going. Steve had laid it all out for Danny, the least he could do was the same.

“When I was with Grace, or when we were planning for Charlie, it was okay, I could tell myself that I had done the right thing. Not just in leaving Five-O, but in choosing Rachel. In choosing _us_. But I could never really commit to the life. Nothing was the same. And every time I tried to imagine my future I just kept coming up blank.”

Danny glances over at Steve, who’s watching him closely. “I knew what I _had_ to do, you know? Like a case I was working. But I just felt so detached from it all. I felt so fucking lonely, Steve, and so fucking scared that after, what? A year and a half? I was so attached to that place, to you, that even my own fucking family couldn’t make it right? That’s why I cut everyone off. That’s why I couldn’t call too much, or visit at all, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever turn back and I couldn’t do that to my kids.”

He’s pulling into his driveway now, his hand a little shaky as he puts the car into gear and turns it off. 

“You should have told me,” Steve eventually says, quiet, and humbled. “I wanted to know that.”

“I’m sorry?” Danny splutters. “You wanted to know that I was unhappy?”

“I wanted to know that it wasn’t just me.”

“When was it ever _just you_ , Steven? You had me shot, and chased and almost blown up so many times I have tried to erase it from my memory – and yet I still got up every morning, and put on a tie, and went into HQ looking forward to my day because I would be with you, and Chin, and Kono. How could you ever think that it was just you, I thought you - ”

Steve is leaning over and taking Danny’s mouth in a kiss before he has time to even catch a breath. It’s gentle, it’s _tender_ , and Danny finds his hands balled in Steve’s sweater and unsure if he’ll ever let go again.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just.” Steve gives him the smallest shake of his head. “For a while there I thought you’d lost your ability to rant. Clearly, I was mistaken.”

“I hate you,” Danny says but he’s leaning in for another kiss and Steve’s tilting his head to oblige.

“I know.”

 

*

 

Another week goes by like this, like they’re in some bubble and never touching the ground. They go out for dinner, and they argue over sports and food and who made what mess, and they fuck, a lot. On Danny’s bed and on the guest bed and in the shower and on the sofa. Danny gets his mouth and fingers and body on whatever he can. On the sharp lines of Steve’s abs and the soft give of his skin and veins; on the dark valleys under his arms and at his ass and behind his ears where he’s most sensitive.

(He worships.)

It’s not until Danny catches Steve chatting happily to Chin one night, that the mask of what they’re doing here starts to crack. Steve’s asking about Kono, and Lori, and Lou. He’s asking about the Governor, and whether he’s been trying to chase Steve down. He’s asking about Kamekona, and the house, and whether there was any point leaving him in charge of the plants.

He asks about Max, and he laughs.

It’s like ice water shooting into Danny’s veins. Like waking up from a dream.

“You’ve been here a long time, now,” Danny says when they’re curled up in front of the TV one night. He presses his mouth to Steve’s shoulder, and looks up expectantly. Steve peers at him as if he’s about to tell the punch line to a joke.

“What’s your point, Danny?”

“My point is,” Danny goes on, pulling back enough that they can see each other properly. “We both want this. We’re _in_ this. But Five-0, and your dad’s house, and – you can’t give it all up. You can’t.”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“What are you going to do in Chicago, Steve? You’re not a cop, you’re a SEAL. You can’t get what you need here, and you know it.”

“What I _want_?” Steve growls back at him, pulling even further away, yanking out of Danny’s touch. “I’ve been at Five-0 for over a year without you Danny, and it didn’t work. Don’t tell me what I want.”

“It’s changed now. We know how we feel about each other, and – things are different now.”

“Are you telling me to leave?”

“No. I’m telling you that I’m here for you. I always have been. But you don’t have to give up everything for me.”

“Give up _what,_ Danny?” This time, Steve’s on his feet. “A taskforce I didn’t want in the first place? A vendetta against a man who could already be dead for all I know.”

“It’s more than that,” Danny says gently, getting up to move closer. There’s barely any space between them, but Danny feels like somehow, suddenly, they’re so far apart he can’t reach. “It’s your family.”

“What do you think you are? Huh? You and Grace and Charlie - ”

“I know, but - ”

“Just because you couldn’t stick around - ” Steve shouts, accusatory, and Danny can’t stop himself from stepping up, from putting two firms hands on Steve’s chest to _push_.

“Fuck you,” he spits, pointing a finger. “You don’t get to hold that over my head every time we… every time this…”

Steve’s jaw tightens, jerking his head to the side in defeat. When he speaks, it’s sharp, but has less sting. “Danny, don’t do this. Don’t push me away.”

“I’m not! I _want_ you,” he says, and it’s the truest thing he’s said since he left Hawaii. It was easy to tell himself Five-0 was what he missed. But it had been Steve, the possibility of Steve that had hurt the most. “If I thought it was the right thing to do, I’d make you stay. But I can’t – I can’t - ”

“Jesus Christ, Danny. I came here because I needed you to know how I feel. I stayed because you told me you feel the same way.”

“I do!”

“Then stop making it so hard!” Steve shouts, and Danny almost has to flinch away from it. That was the old line. The thing they’d always fight about. To Steve, everything was simple. If he’s a bad guy, throw him off a roof. If you need to get through a door, knock it off its hinges. If you’re in love with your partner, scoop him up and never let him go.

Jesus. _In love_.  

“I’m not making it anything,” Danny says, and he doesn’t want to be angry about this. There wasn’t supposed to be anger. “It is what it is.”

“Really? So, you’ve decided and that’s that.” Steve gives him something akin to a smile. It’s the saddest thing Danny’s ever seen. “Fine. Fine. Have it your way. You always do.”

Danny just listens to him walk out.

 

*  


Steve doesn’t stay long enough to say goodbye, in the end. Just throws all his things back in his bag and goes. There’s no note, no information on his flight – it’s sharp and sudden like losing a limb. So Danny just curls up for a while and bleeds out.

There’s still Steve’s dishes in the sink. There’s still the smell of him in the sheets. There’s still so many words stuck at the roof of Danny’s mouth – _let’s make this work, what can we do, I want you in whatever way I can have you_. 

It still feels like an ending.

When Danny has some guy’s shirt in his fists, bellowing at him about what he can expect from Danny if he tries anything stupid – he knows what a mess he’s become. His hair falling out of place, his face flushed, his fist curled so tight he can practically feel the skin stretching over the bone. He’s been wanting to punch something so badly, and this feels like the perfect opportunity – but one of the officers pulls him off, yanking at him like he’s a fish on a hook.

“Hey, hey, let’s walk,” Jen’s saying quietly, steering him around a corner and away from the scene. Danny pulls out of her grip, and throws his arms up as the universal sign for _don’t touch me_.

“He’s gone, Jen,” he yells, then swings around and punches at a pebbly wall, the pain of it making him cry out. He cradles his hand for a while, and focuses on his breathing, and tries not to think about what he’s supposed to do now. “He left.”

“I’m sorry, Danny.”

When he turns around to see her, he hates the look in her eyes. She’s seen him flip out over a case, or a perp – but she hasn’t seen him flip out like this. “He – he wanted to stay and I told him not to,” he tells her. He knows he doesn’t have to go into details with her. He knows she probably always understood there was something more between them.

“Why?”

“Because his whole life is in Hawaii.”

“Obviously not,” she says softly. “If he came all this way to be with you.”

Danny scoffs. Everyone wants to believe that it can be that easy. That words can build a future, but they can’t. They need more than that. “It’s fine for now, but what about later? When he misses his friends? When he misses the ocean? What can I offer him then? What…”

When his voice trails off, all that’s left is the sounds of the nearby crime scene. The rumble of traffic. He has his head down as she walks over to him, his fingers pinching at his nose when she reaches out to grab his arm.

“Let’s go get a drink,” she says gently, gripping at him just enough. She’d done the same thing when they’d been too late to a hostage situation, or when he’d been fighting with Rachel about her taking the kids to London for a while.

That’s the thing about this. About Chicago, and Jen, and Danny’s place in this life. It’s good. It’s really good. Every man should be so lucky. And if it weren’t for the crippling knowledge of what he could have, of what he should have, he’d be glad for this to be his lot in life.

But there was always something missing.

“You need to go back, Danny,” Jen says once they’re settled at a bar and a few beers in.  

“To Hawaii?” he asks, as if he needs to. If he’s honest, it’s all he had thought about since Steve walked out.

“Yes. Just, to see him. Get closure if you need it.”

“If I go back there …”

“What? You’ll realise you shouldn’t have left in the first place?”

“Yes. Fuck. That’s why I stopped calling them. That’s why I never visited. Because it’s one thing to know what I’m missing, but to _see_ it?”

“That’s how it was, you know,” Jen says, looking at Danny like she can see right through him. He often thinks she can.

“What?”

“Before Steve came to visit. You were this version of yourself that I thought was real. But from the moment he came it’s like you were shaken up, you know? Like one of those little snow globes. You were just an image of something. And Steve brought you to life.”

Danny laughs. “Wow. Wow, Jen, have you been taking poetry classes?”

“I’m serious, Danny,” she says firmly, despite her mouth being twisted up a little with her amusement.

“I know. And you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” she teases with a shrug, then stabs at him with a gentle elbow. “I’m right about Hawaii, too.

 

*  


Danny’s always been the hard nosed Williams. His family – his parents, his sisters, even Matt – they were idealistic. They were dreamers. Danny, though - he dealt with facts. He saw evidence, he saw DNA, he put the figures together. Everything else was just circumstantial. It didn’t matter what Steve claimed, it didn’t matter what he _believed_ to be true – the fact was, he belonged in Hawaii. Hawaii was in his blood.

The thing Danny _did_ inherit (the Williams curse) was his big, dumb heart on his sleeve. When he fell in love, he did it hard. It was ugly, and brutal, and no amount of facts could stop him from almost killing himself in the pursuit of it. He had it for Rachel, and for their children – and now he had it for Steve.

If it was ugly now, he didn’t dare think about how much worse it could get.

“I’m going to Hawaii for a few days,” Danny tells Rachel when she drops the kids off at his place. She falters as she’s putting Charlie’s bottles in the fridge. It almost looks like she flinched.

“Oh. You’re going back with Steve?”

“No, he’s already there,” Danny says, biting back the snide comment about where she thinks he’s hiding right now.  “I’m going back to see him.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah. Look, Rachel, not that it’s any of your business but - ”

“Daniel, please.” She stops him with a hand in the air. Her expression is tight, like it used to be every time Danny would says the words _Five-0_. “I know. I’ve known for a long time.”

“Excuse me, _you know_?” he repeats, the revelation burning at his throat a little. It’s not for her to know – not without Danny telling her first – he feels exposed in way he never has with her.

“Yes. I do. I’m not completely blind, thank you very much.”

“Who said you were?”

“I thought maybe it was happening, before we left Hawaii. I thought – honestly I thought you were going to stay with him.”

“Rachel,” Danny says, losing a breath.

“But I was wrong. So when we went to New Jersey, and finally got some distance from him, I thought you’d get over it.” Rachel ducks her head. “But I was wrong about that, too.”

“Wow. It would have been nice to know.”

Rachel laughs, and it’s nice to know that it’s a real thing. He doesn’t get to hear it much these days. “Yes, because trying to tell Danny Williams how he feels would have worked so well I’m sure.”

Danny’s quiet, fiddling with his car keys and trying not to say too much. He understands her reluctance now. He understands why she told him to be careful when Steve arrived. Because in her mind Steve was the reason it didn’t work out. “I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know if it will work. But I’m going to try.”

“Of course you are,” Rachel says with a small nod and it feels like some sort of blessing.  

“I’ll let you know when I fly out.”

“Take care, Danny.”

The trip to O’Hare is a blur. He checks in and zones out and just lets the motions take him. He hands over his ticket, and sits in his seat, and orders himself a whiskey when he’s 35,000 feet in the air as if that’s going to help him. The young girl next to him is watching a movie, and the man behind him keeps kneeing his seat, and Danny just closes his eyes to it all.

It’s not until he’s standing on Steve’s front doorstep with every piece of Hawaii assaulting his senses that Danny finally feels awake again. The smell of the air, like there’s rain on the way. The birds in the trees, like they’re laughing at him. Steve’s footsteps inside approaching.

“Danny?” he says, like a gasp, checking over Danny’s shoulder as if he’s expecting someone else. Danny just drops his bag at his feet, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“Come here,” he says, pulling Steve to him and wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders. “I love you, you asshole. I love you so much.”

Steve takes a big shuddering breath through his nose, his face buried in Danny’s neck. “I love you too.”

“And I know that it felt like I was pushing you away, or that I didn’t want you in my life, but that’s not true Steve, that will never be true, I wouldn’t – I _can’t_ –“

“Danny,” Steve interrupts, firm. His fingernails dig so deep into the muscle of Danny’s back that it almost hurts. “Stop. Don’t. I know.”

“I love you,” Danny feels the need to say again, here in the quiet shelter of Steve’s doorway. And maybe that was their problem in the first place.

Everything else was so loud they couldn’t hear the simple truth.

“I love you.”

 

*  


Steve calls in sick and they spend the better part of a day in bed. He makes food from whatever scraps he has in the fridge, and Danny insists on brewing the coffee – “you know you never could work this machine properly, McGarrett” – and they talk about everything except the one thing they should.

They’ve mastered that now, Danny supposes.

They lie tangled together and Danny listens to the ocean. He’s not sure how he feels in these moments. Glad to be back again. Sad that he can’t stay. Amazed that he’s actually feeling sentimental about a body of water that isn’t a hot tub. Hawaii really did change Danny. In a lot of ways.

“Chin,” Steve says when he reaches over to the nightstand to get his phone. It’s been buzzing with texts for hours. “Checking up on me again.”

“You can tell him, you know,” Danny grumbles, tiredly, rolling over to rest his head on Steve’s chest.

“Yeah? What would I say?”

“That I’m visiting. We could go out for real food. I could meet the rest of your team.”

“You’d be up for that?”

“What did you think I was here for? A booty call?”

Danny’s head bobs as Steve laughs. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Steve sends a text off, a long hurried thing, then abandons his phone on the floor. He rolls Danny onto his back, pressing rough kisses to his neck, and his collarbone, and his throat. Danny fists hands in Steve’s hair and _pulls_ , insisting on a kiss to his open mouth. He wraps his legs around Steve’s back, and claws into his shoulders, and wonders how deep he has to go before he can be stuck here forever.

“ _Fuck me_ ,” he demands, Steve’s hand coasting over his skin like a current. Steve huffs, but he’s smiling, biting at Danny’s bottom lip.

“Oh, right, because this wasn’t a booty call.”

 

*

 

Danny remembers a night when the team had gone out after a case. It had taken them almost a week to solve it – a string of grisly murders that seemed to get worse and worse with each passing one. It had been such a relief to see the back of it that Steve had ordered them all to their usual haunt, promising that the drinks were all on him. Danny still remembers the sound of his own laughter.

They had shared a taxi, and Danny had been dropped off first. Steve had put a hand on Danny’s shoulder, had let his thumb flirt at Danny’s ear.

“Thanks, Danno,” Steve had said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He’d been drunk, sure, and his eyes were a little glazed, but it had been as real as anything else. Danny knows that now. (He’d put his own hand on his ear, back then, to chase it – so maybe he’d known all along.)

“Danny!” Kono cries when they get to the restaurant, leaping out of her seat to rush over. Chin’s not far behind him. “What a sight for sore eyes!”

“You too,” Danny tells her, holding on for a tight hug and feeling it all wash over him.

Max is here, too, Kamekona and Joe – but there’s a few faces he doesn’t recognise. A pretty blonde woman who must be Lori, and a tall, hulking, smiling man that can only be Lou. Danny’s heard so much about them he feels like he should know them better. But he doesn’t. They’re pieces of the memories Danny never got to make.

It’s a good night. It’s a really good night. Danny’s loose, and laughing, not bothered by Steve’s arm around the back of his chair or what the others might think that means. He’s got a few days here with them tops, he wants it to feel right. He wants it to be real. He takes all the teasing they dole out at him, because he knows they’re entitled to it.

He’d been suffocating with all his guilt in Chicago.

He never thought it could be this simple to see it float away.

“When he came back we thought something bad had happened,” Chin says when they go up to the bar together.

“It did,” Danny tells him honestly. “But we’re working on it. I think.”

“You know … when you were here I felt like it was hard getting to know you.”

“Are you joking? All I did was talk about my problems.”

Chin laughs. “Yeah, man, but. You were Steve’s friend. He’d just lost his dad, took on a whole taskforce – you were _his_ friend. You know?”

“I do. I didn’t want it to feel like that, but I get why it would have.”

“Hey. I didn’t say it was a bad thing. It wasn’t. In fact, it was probably the best thing that could have happened.”

“Oh, yeah?” Danny asks with a smile. He felt like he was being welcomed back with open arms. He felt like it was going to be okay. But hearing it out loud was even better. “You mean you wouldn’t have wanted him to have a partner who was just as big of a risk taking meat head?”

“No. Definitely not. He might not have stuck around if that were the case.”

“No.”

“I’m happy for you guys, Danny,” Chin says kindly, patting Danny on the shoulder. Chin knew what it was to lose something. To fight for it back. If anyone understood it was him. “I hope you know that.”

“Thanks, Chin.”

 

*

 

There’s things Danny had almost forgotten about. There’s a little stall on a street corner that sell gel bracelets Grace always wanted to buy. There’s a radio station that only tunes in at certain places around town and plays a mix of classic rock that never failed to make Danny homesick. There’s a floorboard at Steve’s house that always creaks underfoot, and there’s this little man made out of shells Mary bought that sits on a windowsill, and there’s a photo of Steve as a toddler wearing his dad’s gumboots that’s tacked on a wall in his study.

There’s a tank top Steve wears, a faded blue one with Navy insignia that Danny liked to wear whenever Steve went away. It was worn but it was warm and it always smelt fresh, and clean and familiar.

“Don’t, don’t,” Danny says, when Steve tries to take it off him, and Steve just smirks and bites at Danny’s belly through the fabric.

Danny’s leaving. His flights in a few hours, and he’s already said goodbye to the team, and it’s going to be okay, he has to keep reminding himself. Steve’s here, above him and inside of him and whispering _I love you_ into Danny’s ear so they’re going to be alright. They’ll take turns visiting, like they talked about. They’ll do long distance.

It will work.

“I want you to stay here forever,” Steve’s saying, breathless, fucking into Danny like he doesn’t know when he’ll get to again. “In my bed, on my sheets, wearing my clothes.”

“I know, I know,” Danny bites out, clawing at Steve so hard he knows it hurts. Steve watches him, eyes dark and unflinching and Danny can’t do anything but look right back. It’s fast and bruising and it feels _so good_ and Danny’s overwhelmed with lust and joy and desperation, overwhelmed with the need to feel everything but sadness.

He comes with a shout, with Steve’s hand on his dick and spilling inside him and he wonders how they’d never done this before. In the beginning. How they hadn’t seen what was staring them right in the face.

 _They make sense_.

“Don’t go, _please_ don’t go,” Steve pleads as he recovers, curled up close and grabbing at Danny’s shoulder, his arm, whatever he can reach.

“I’m sorry,” Danny whispers, burrowing down into the smell of their sweat, and their sex, trying to commit it all to memory. “I’ll be back. I’m sorry.”

 

*  


Danny likes his precinct. He loves his partner. He doesn’t mind the coffee, either, some days, if he hasn’t had enough sleep and there’s a dozen unsolved cases sitting on his desk. For a workplace, it’s as good a place as any. But that’s the thing – it’s just a place. It’s just four walls and a source of income.

It’s not Iolani Palace.

“How’re you holding up?” Jen asks, coming to sit on Danny’s desk one morning. He’s only been back from Hawaii for a week or so, but he’s already tiring from that question. From Jen, and Paul – even Rachel’s been incessant with her concern. It’s starting to rattle his nerves.

“Fine,” Danny lies throwing down a pen.

“You’ve got the kids tonight, right?”

“Sure do.”

“I was thinking. Maybe you could bring them around to mine?

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Jen reaches over to put a soft hand around his shoulder. “I’ll get Mark to cook burgers. It’ll be nice.”

“Alright. Sure.”

Danny likes his house. It’s nothing like the disasters he had in Hawaii. It’s small, but it’s sturdy, and the owner doesn’t give him any trouble. The kids both have their own room, and the neighbourhood is nice, and if there’s ever an emergency he’s never far from help. He could do worse.

He had done worse.

But he’d take the worst houses back, if he could.

“Daniel,” Rachel says when Danny gets there. She’s sitting at the kitchen table and the kids are nowhere to be seen. “I think we need to talk.”

“What’s going on Rachel?”

“Stan and I have decided that we need to make a change.”

Danny braces himself with a hand on the back of a chair. It’s the sort of thing she said when they moved to Hawaii. The sort of thing she said when she’d been cheating with Stan. All those words sounded the same to him now. We decided. We need. “What are you trying to say?”

“We’re moving. We’re - ”

“No, you’re not,” Danny grits out, taking a breath and fighting against the white hot rage threatening to bubble up. “There is no way I’m letting you uproot me and the kids again after all this time. I can’t keep doing this, Rachel, I can’t keep pretending that - ”

“Danny! If you’d shut your mouth for just a moment you’d let me finish. We’re going back to Hawaii.”

“What?” Danny says before he can stop himself. He’s taking a wobbly step, and his hands are shaking, and it’s so strange to hear that word on her mouth without also hearing, _you could never let go of_. “Why would you - ”

“Do you think I haven’t noticed?” She might not mean to, but she almost sounds offended. Berating. As if Danny should know her better than that. “I remember the man I brought to New Jersey. This is worse.”

“Rachel - ” Danny starts, falling into the chair beside her and grabbing at her hand. He tries not to see the way her eyes are welling up, scared that his will too.

“It’s not as though we would be giving anything up,” she says, trying to sound flippant. “We liked Hawaii too. Besides, with his ties to you, and you returning to Five-0, it makes Stan’s business a thousand times more bankable than it does here on the mainland. He’s practically been begging me to return there himself so he can get back on that _stupid_ surfboard I - ”

“ _Rachel_ ,” Danny all but gasps, pulling her in for a hug and holding on tight. He doesn’t know what else to do, or say, right now anyway – and all their best moments have been the quiet, understanding kind. “ _Thank you_.”

Danny likes Chicago. It’s a nice city. There’s great places to eat, fun things to do with the kids, and it _is_ home to Wrigley Field. Which, at one stage in his life might have been enough to keep him here.

But not now.

Not without Steve, and Hawaii, and knowing he can have his whole, happy family.

His whole heart.

 

**Epilogue.**

  
Steve’s wearing ratty old clothes with a hole at his collar, purple paint splattered all over him. His hair’s at weird angles, a little crusty from saltwater, and the back of his neck is a little too pink from sun. Danny watches him from the bedroom doorway, how the hem of his shirt rides up as he stretches to reach the top of the walls.

“Give her a few years and she’s going to be pinning posters of celebrities all over your walls, babe,” he says, Steve spinning around to grin at him.

“Oh, so you’re awake now.”

“It’s only 9am, heathen.”

“And for the record,” Steve says, dropping the paint roller and coming over to where Danny’s rubbing at tired eyes. “Grace can pin whatever she wants up there.”

“I see how this is going to go,” Danny grumbles, grabbing at Steve’s shirt while Steve gathers Danny in his arms. “Good cop, bad cop. She’s going to come crying to you every time I tell her she can’t have something.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Why’d I agree to live with you again?”

“I don’t know, Danno,” Steve says in a low voice, dipping his mouth close to Danny’s ear.  
”Why’d you come back to Hawaii?”

“I ask myself that question every day.”

Steve presses kisses to Danny’s face, and his chin, and his mouth. “Is it because you love me?” he asks, not giving Danny a chance to answer before he kisses him again.

“Hmm, you know…” Danny starts, his hands circling around to grab at Steve’s shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and flex.

“Is it? I think it might be,” Steve goes on with a playful growl, nipping at Danny’s neck.

“Do you?”

“Yep. You love me, and you love Five-0 and you can’t wait for me to spoil your children rotten. Admit it.”

“Okay, okay. I love you,” Danny tells him, and this time the kiss deepens, Danny a moment away from getting Steve pushed against a wall before remembering that the paint is still wet.

When they pull apart Steve’s grinning down at him. “And?”

“And,” Danny says, pulling Steve backwards out of the door, and towards Steve’s bedroom. “I can’t wait.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> My [Tumblr](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com) and skyearth85's [Tumblr](http://skyearth85.tumblr.com)!


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